


Trash Talking

by vulcan_slash_robot



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Self-Loathing, not angst i promise, rated teen for the Bad Language Words, stony mcu bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 17:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14407407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcan_slash_robot/pseuds/vulcan_slash_robot
Summary: Tony has some harsh words for himself. Steve is having none of it.Fill for my "self loathing" square in Stony MCU Bingo.





	Trash Talking

“Ugh, sorry,” Tony grumbled, shuffling toward the coffee maker in the sudden silence. “I know, I know, nobody wants to see the landlord at breakfast, just need to refuel.”

“Tony...are you okay? Have you slept?”

That was Steve’s voice, probably, maybe, it came from the general direction of where he’d seen a blond pile of muscles, anyway, which had looked too big to be Clint and too calm to be Thor. 

“Yep. Sure. I have definitely slept,” Tony groped for a mug in the cabinet, initially coming up with one emblazoned with Steve’s shield and then very studiously putting it back. “That is absolutely a thing I’ve done.”

“...recently?”

“Uh, maybe, what day is it?” Tony grimaced and waved off the inevitable scolding. “Don’t answer, it doesn’t matter. Got things to do. Stuff to build. Money and machines, it’s what you keep me around for, all I’m good for anyway.”

Coffee successfully poured, he turned to leave, but was stopped by a gentle-yet-immovable hand on his shoulder, which turned him in place.

“Hey,” Steve waited for Tony to look at him, brows furrowed sternly, but his tone didn’t carry the sort of dressing-down Tony was used to getting for his fuckups. “I’ll thank you not to say things like that about my teammate, Stark.”

Tony blinked in confusion, opening his mouth to reply but unable to muster a proper response.

“Now come on, stick around, take a break with us. Clint made waffles.”

“Uh...waffles, okay, sure.”

*************

*************

“Ow, ow ow ow, ow, fuck, ow--”

“Tony? What did you do?”  Steve’s voice wavered between amusement and concern, drifting over from the other side of the workshop.

“I drop-kicked a wrench.”

“...wouldn’t that hurt your foot?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t--”

“ _Yes I knew it would hurt._ ”

“Okay. So. Why are we kicking tools.”

“Seemed like the thing to do,” Tony huffed, uncurling from around his abused ankle and running both hands through his hair, mussing it up, wiping away that last scrap of board-room-presentability that had snuck home with him. “I mean, you know how it is, sometimes you present a good idea, and sometimes you spend five hours trying to defend a garbage sidegrade to an unimportant susbsystem in a piece of consumer  _trash_ that nobody even needs and worse, nobody _actually wants_  which you should never have even built except it sounded like fun, but hey, my fault, should have known better by now, me? Fun? Disaster. I’m a disaster and anything I do is a disaster and--”

This time, the immovable hand clamped over his mouth.

“Knock it off, mister, that’s my best friend you’re bad-mouthing.” 

Tony made a noise of protest, but Steve refused to release his face until Tony rolled his eyes and gave a shrug of surrender.

“Better,” Steve pulled him into a brief hug, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Is this about the portable music player line again?”

Tony slumped onto the sofa and let himself make the biggest and saddest eyes he knew how. Steve sighed.

“I’ll grab you a beer. Don’t kick anything else.”

********************

********************

Tony lurched awake, struggling to draw breath past the familiar fingers of clammy fear. The sheets were twisted around him, drenched in sweat. Details of the dream were fading fast, and already he was unsure of whether it’d been the darkness of space or of the cave that he’d been so desperate to escape. He struggled free of the sheets until he could sit up, and scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“Useless,” Tony mumbled, trying to calm the hitch in his breath. “Pathetic. Years of therapy, and this, this is the best we can do? Garbage. Broken forever, fuckin’ recycle me for scrap already--”

“nnnnnnnoooooo...” moaned a sleep-laden voice from somewhere around Tony’s hip. A burly arm snaked around his waist, and the face that was still buried under the blankets nuzzled up to, mostly, Tony’s ass. “Don’, s’mean, s’my boyfren, s’perfec, ilovem.”

Half-hysterical laughter bubbled up through the cracks of Tony’s fading panic. “Steve? Baby are you even awake?”

He twitched the covers back and twisted awkwardly, peering down to find his soldier’s face innocent and slack with sleep. And yet, Steve clung to him like a limpet, sighing out a surprisingly intelligible “Don’ talk mean about my boyfriend, I love’m,” before resuming his usual quiet snoring.

*********************

*********************

Details of the recent past were hazy, so it was the beeping of the heart monitor that gave Tony his first clue that things were currently Not Great. A good assortment of aches and pains followed next on the list, but they were dim and faraway thanks to the magic of medication. Which was rather more worrying, come to think of it. 

And then, of course, there was Steve’s face swimming into focus above him. He had that look on. That I’m-doing-my-very-best-not-to-feel-feelings-right-now look, which meant he was really feeling a lot of feelings, and none of them were nice. 

“Oh, good,” Tony rasped, squinting around for anything to look at, anything besides that awful face. “I’m alive, apparently.”

A shaky intake of breath threatened to draw Tony’s attention back to the right-hand side of his hospital bed, but he’d rather not look over there, actually, thank you.

“You could try not to sound so surprised by that, for once,” Steve suggested softly. “Maybe give me a little hope that you’re not pulling these stunts with your own death in mind as a likely outcome.”

“Acceptable losses, Cap,” Tony fired back, a little slurred, but adamant. “The world needs you, and it can get by with one less asshole billionaire. There’s plenty where I came from, I’m only--”

A single finger landed across his lips in no uncertain terms. 

“ _Nobody_ talks about my husband like that,” Steve reminded him, voice shuddering around barely-contained emotion. “Never.”

*******************************

********************

*********

“Ruined. I’m all ruined. You did this.”

“What’s wrong now.”

Tony frowned at his reflection in the microwave, tracking the crinkles around his eyes and the streaks of grey that were slowly overtaking his stylish morning-hair. “I’m  _old_ ,” he grumped, turning away from the offending image to finish pouring glasses of orange juice. “Worse than that, I’m domesticated. I used to be cool, Rogers, I used to be somebody, I used to drive fast cars and woo pretty people, now I’m just a nobody old fart making waffles and bacon on a Saturday morning.”

Steve rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. “Sic ‘em,” he commanded, pointing at Tony.

A pair of little blond pigtails bounced as their owner looked up at once from her pre-breakfast coloring and rounded obediently on Tony. 

“Don’t say mean things about my daddy!” Sarah-Marie piped gleefully and clearly by rote. “My daddy is the best daddy and I love him and Papa loves him and, and be nice!” She finished with a gap-toothed grin. 

Steve rewarded her with a high-five as Tony gaped.

“Weaponizing the rugrat, are we?” Tony finally managed. “Dangerous precedent, dear, I’ll remember that.” 


End file.
